Why is shopping so much fun when you are not at home?

September 13, 2013 by 2 Comments

324012-online-shoppingI can’t even begin to tell you how much time I spent reading the ads in the comics when I was a little girl. Hours would go past as I looked through the small black and white coupon redemption ads imagining myself snacking on Hostess Twinkies with my x-ray vision glasses perched on the end of my nose while tending to my family of sea monkeys who were jumping through hoops outside their castle.

All those novelty toys looked so amazing probably because I never got to see the real thing and feel the invariable disappointment of receiving shrimp brine instead of sea monkeys and novelty plastic instead of x-ray glasses.

Growing up in a country with sanctions imposed on it for it’s horrific apartheid activity meant that we didn’t get to see a lot of imported products in our department store or supermarket aisles. In my mind “overseas” became the land of milk and honey or rather Sea Monkeys and Magic Sand and I imagined giant toy stores of miraculous product and proportion. With a huge emphasis on Fisher Price toys and bubble gum.

When my parents traveled they would bring us home gifts that seemed so exotic and unique – like writing paper and matching envelopes of Raggedy Anne and Andy (one of my fondest gift memories), dolls that came in tissue boxes and watches that had lights behind them – okay it was in the 1970’s.

Everything from “overseas” was tinged with novelty and awesome.

And then many, many, many years passed, sanctions were lifted and I came to live in Australia. For a while I was in awe of the supermarkets because everything was different and exciting. And then time passed and it all just became tedious shopping for groceries.

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Many time I have made the mistake of shopping myself ragged while overseas and then coming home with a worrying amount of shameful consumerism and bags full of stuff that looked better in its native countries.

When I am on holiday I can spend hours browsing through shops and marveling at every item on the shelf while at home I hate shopping with an intensity that others reserve for politicians. But yesterday I had to get a few things before we go overseas this weekend and I had a bit of time on my hands. I got past my initial hatred of being inside a shopping centre and tried to recall the wonder I felt at shopping overseas. And the most revelatory thing for me was how much STUFF there is on the shelves right here at home.

I’ve never noticed the electronic eyelash curlers or the gimmicks and gadgets, the huge range of stationery that would have me salivating if I had caught a plane to get to the shop where it was stocked.

I cannot believe that there is anything that I am going to see overseas that I can’t find in Australia. Other than the different cultures of course, which are very hard to buy and package. So, hopefully this holiday I will stay out of the shops and try to fill up on experiences instead.

If my husband is reading this I hope he realises I am fully entitled to change my mind as soon as we hit duty free. Also none of this counts for clothing purchases.

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So detached but so attached

September 9, 2013 by 12 Comments
johannesburg and sydney

My heart on the left and my body on the right

The last week has been surreal. My body’s been doing its thing in Australia but it’s been without my heart. My heart is in South Africa, specifically in a hospital ward in Johannesburg where my father is recovering from open heart surgery.

In one way it’s a huge (albeit very selfish) relief not to be there and see my father, the strongest man in the world, with hundreds of tubes attached to him. We aren’t there now mainly because my dad and step-mom think we shouldn’t be right now. As soon as they give the word we will be. I’m not sure your eyes can ever erase the image of a person you love fighting to breathe. I know I can still see my baby on his ventilator as a newborn and he’s 12 and perfectly healthy now. Every time I speak to my step-mother I can hear just how hard it is for her to see the man she loves lying helpless on a bed, his body struggling to heal itself (with the aid of brilliant modern medicine).

And it seems so wrong to be so far away. So detached while still feeling so attached. It seems wrong for the world to be carrying on as normal while my father struggles to recover.

It feels like the sun shouldn’t be shining.
I should not be shopping or drinking coffee with friends or wasting my time on the internet.
I should not be counting down the days till we go to Europe.
I should not be sad about election results which ultimately are not going to change MY life

It feels wrong that everyone is carrying on oblivious to the fact that my father is in intensive care and my step-mother is spending her every waking moment taking care of her husband and my father while we carry on as if everything is the same.
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And the distance between us is highlighted by the fact that everything IS the same.

Every day I go about my day thousands of kilometres away from my dad and step-mom. Their nights are my days and their days are my nights.

I don’t know what they’re doing or thinking about the little stuff. The stuff that’s so important when you are family that love each other.

They don’t eat our alphabet dinners or get to come over for a meal once a week with the rest of the family and my dad doesn’t get to make ridiculous dad jokes in person – and believe me he is spectacularly good at dad jokes.

This living apart from people you love thing is the pits – when the person on one side of the world is sick, it’s just fucking awful.

Thank you for listening to me rant. And dad, if you ever read this please excuse me for swearing.

 

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The strongest man in the world

September 1, 2013 by 16 Comments
strongest man in the world

My son and the strongest man in the world

“The strongest man in the world”

That’s been my fathers line ever since I can remember. For 45 years every time I’ve asked my father how he is, its been the same response given in the same tone of voice. The strongest man in the world.

My father is not the type of man that suffers from “man flu”. In fact if he’s ever been sick with a real cold or flu, he’d just cough, sneeze and say “I’m the strongest man in the world.” Mind you it didn’t stop him from carrying around the neatest selection of Panadol, cold and flu tablets and antacids in his car that you’ve ever seen. But that was organisational rather than medicinal. My dad is rather pedantic, just like his youngest daughter (that would be me).

Last night he called me from his home in South Africa. How are you?” I said
“Strongest man in the world” he replied.

But what followed next revealed the chasm of distance, the true heartbreak of living in a different country from the strongest man in the world.

We hadn’t been there to see that he was feeling breathless, we hadn’t chatted to him about or even known to ask him what the doctor said when he went for a check up. We hadn’t anxiously awaited the results of his angiogram. We just heard the end result – he’s having bypass surgery this week.
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Mentally I am already packing my bags to go see him, thinking of how I can organise everything at home to be with him. Should I be leaving my mother and sister for the Jewish New Year this week or should I be flying on the first plane to South Africa?

He’s the strongest man in the world, my dad. He says we shouldn’t worry and I’m sure that flying to see him in hospital is not ideal because I know he never wants me to see him weak and vulnerable. He never even wants to tell me when he’s sick.  I am sure if it wasn’t for his wife he wouldn’t have even “worried” us with this upcoming surgery. He wants us to believe he’s the strongest man in the world and he would rather I be there when we can actually spend some time together. Not when he’s lying recovering from open heart surgery. Who ever thought a sentence could be so hard to write?

And I feel immediately like we don’t spend enough time together and I feel the huge distance between us. He knows how much I love him and I know that I’m his favourite – just like my sisters believe they are his favourite (even though I’m right and they’re not). I feel the pain of not having the every day with him, the quick catch-ups, the weekly dinners, the little things.

I know he cries when he gets off the phone and I have told him about the amazing things Little Pencil has been doing and he knows that my child is growing up without his physical presence in his life. I know that I need to be a better daughter to him – that telling him I love him once a week over the phone isn’t enough. And I feel the distance that I blame for stopping me.

Today everything made me think of him, the clothes in the shops, the food on my plate, the music on the radio, the tears of my sister, the voice of my son. My father seemed to be everywhere, but he was nowhere I could be with him today.

He doesn’t even know it’s Fathers Day in Australia today. He just happened to choose the right time to remind me how grateful I am for the father that he is and how much I miss him.

Now if we can just get through this week because it’s only 150 days before we celebrate his next birthday TOGETHER in Australia.

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I didn’t even know you could do this to yourself at home. In 20 minutes

August 29, 2013 by 19 Comments

My problem was that I trusted a colourist.

If you know me at all you’ll know that I’m the kind of person who thinks a hairdresser is the person at the salon that does all the “stuff” to your hair. You know, like cutting and coloring and blow drying and in some unfortunate cases, thinking back to the 80’s, the perming. Then I went to a very swanky hairdresser and was informed that the hairdresser was the cutter, although I think he may have called himself a “stylist”. If I wanted colour I needed to talk to the colourist.

As it so happened I didn’t want colour per se but mostly I didn’t want the colour grey.

The colourist loved the “tones” of my hairs that weren’t grey and, in an act that made me really appreciate colourist integrity, told me I shouldn’t alter the colour of my hair at all. Apparently I was very lucky to be “blessed with natural highlights.”  Given that grey was the predominant hue of these highlights I wasn’t that sure I agreed with him. But he was convincing and so by mistake I listened to him.

He urged me to go to the supermarket, again I was happy with his integrity, and buy a colour shampoo. He said that if I bought a shade or two lighter than my hair I would cover the greys but not alter the actual colour of my hair. Sorted.

I waited about a year and then did exactly that.

caramel

I used a filter to protect you from the orange shock (and make my skin look good) But you can see how light my hair is …..that’s NOT a trick

I chose a lovely ash blonde because that is definitely lighter than my hair. I treated the actual colouring process with scant regard because after all, all that I was doing was covering greys.

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Nobody warned me that you could lighten your hair with a colour shampoo. In fact, on the contrary, people told me that only bleach could strip away  colour and result in lighter hair.

Now I have caramel hair. It is almost the same colour as my dog which looks really beautiful on dog. Not as beautiful on 45-year old woman with fair skin and freckles.

But worse.  The hair along the top  of my head is REALLY caramel – like some kind of cheap, dodgy balyage gone wrong. And the hair at my temples is untouched, meaning that it’s grey.

I tried to convince myself that it wasn’t too bad and in fact it wasn’t even that different, surely I was just being over critical.  And then I went out and saw people that I know.

My hair is caramel verging on orange with prominent grey streaks. There is no denying it.

Nice.

At least hair grows.  A a sentence I must have repeated to myself about 100 times an hour (and heard about 100 times from other people).

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The pictures of my life

August 23, 2013 by 2 Comments

photoFor the last couple of days I’ve been lost in the past. Sorting through photographs that I’ve found stored in the back of drawers, inside long unopened cupboards and sticking out of the middle of books. Photos in old fashioned sticky albums, in sleeved albums. Photos on CD’s, on laptops and phones and computers. Thousands of them. Some from weeks ago and others from decades ago.

I’ve always loved taking photographs, not in an creative artistic way but rather as a means of capturing moments in time. I’m one of those irritating people who get so caught up in ensuring that I ‘m capturing everything on film that I sometimes forget to live the moment. Sometimes it’s a pain but years later it pays off.

I’ve been living those moments again and again while I rifle through my past like a speed-reader glancing at a page and picking up the gist of the story. It’s not just for sentimental reasons, although it is certainly stirring up an emotion or two, rather I am making one of those super cool photo walls to make my house look more like my home. For this I need to choose my very favourite photos, the photos that tell the story of our family.

It is a strange and emotional experience going through your past in picture format.

It takes you right back to your earliest memories when you see your favourite scarf, the one whose tassles you pulled through your fingers as you sucked your thumb to sleep as a little girl. It’s overwhelming to see the little girl who shares your body going to school for the first time. Such a different little girl but yet still the very same woman.

It takes you through a roller-coaster of emotions to see the high school version of yourself who thought she was so cool. Cool is different from troubled but she didn’t know that. Now you just want to reach out to her and yank her away from that very turbulent time.

It’s cringeworthy when you see yourself in high school with crimped hair or worse when you finally dig out the wedding photos that you have been hiding because you had a perm THE DAY BEFORE your wedding.
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It’s overwhelming when you open a box of wedding photos and find hidden inside the hand written love letters your husband and you exchanged during some of the hardest times. It’s tragic when you recall the events surrounding some of those letters but it’s magical when you realise where you are today and that you’re still together only you love each other even more now.

It’s like a slap in the face when you look at pictures of your parents and realise that you are older now than they were in those photos – even though then they were your very old and wise parents at the time.

It’s confronting when you look at the pictures of your new born baby attached to a ventilator that is breathing for him and think to yourself “I could never handle that” but at the time you did it and you sat at the hospital by his side every day for two months and took more and more photos every day.

It’s like a break in the clouds during a black storm when you see the pictures of that same tiny child leaving hospital and all the clouds evaporate when you look through his life and see huge smiles dominating his every waking moment. Because you’ve photographed most of these moments.

It fills you with warmth and happiness as you flip through holidays and birthdays of the family you have created and you smile from deep within at the memories they bring.

It’s comforting to know that you’re still taking photos. And important to remember never to stop writing letters.

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My search for a miracle

July 22, 2013 by 14 Comments

FlimFlam2

I have a problem. It’s expensive, it’s vain and ultimately it is bad for my self esteem.

It happens every time I enter a the cosmetics section of a department store . I am seduced by the bright lights and repeated promises of the make up counter. It’s like suddenly I am in a magical place where everything I read is true and  nothing is more important than flawless skin, wide eyes and ridiculously long eye lashes. I firmly believe a miracle lies in the bottles on the shelves – I just need to unearth it.

Last Friday was no exception. My very good friend and partner in crime work, Kerri and I had been at a work related meeting all morning. We were suave and professional until about the second we left the building when we went back to normal. In the car on the way home we discussed some very important issues that had not come up in the meeting because they were not at all work related.  Even though the issues weren’t work related they were slightly stressful so we decided to take them to Westfield at Bondi Junction to get rid of them.

Although I am sure Kerri will deny it, it was when we went to the bathroom and the harsh light shone on the bags under my eyes that she told me about this new product that she loved. And I started to tremble because I knew where we were headed next.

As we walked through the magical make-up corridor towards the Benefit counter where we were going to find a concealer that would change my life, er I mean face, I got that familiar feeling. I needed ALL the things. Even though I own a fair bit of make up I still have this nagging feeling that there is something that I am missing – that one piece of magic makeup that is actually going to change my face, make me look different – younger, smoother, shinier, more “finished”. Actually I am not even sure what I am looking for any more.

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Ten minutes later I found myself sitting on a chair having all manner of make up applied to my face.  Eyes closed, lips pursed, cheeks sucked in I was very patient while I had my face painted. I was convinced that when I looked in the mirror I would hardly recognise my new flawless skin.

But when the lovely woman handed me a mirror and I glanced at my reflection I looked just like me.  If anything was different it was that all the make up was now highlighting my fine lines so they looked less fine and more prominent.

Kerri insisted that I looked gorgeous. Another clue that she was working for the enemy Benefit.  And so it happened like it always does, I was persuaded by the perfume, the hype, the adverts and the lies that the make up might just be magic and maybe the woman had not been liberal enough in her application.  So I bought it all.

And I took it home and I applied it quite liberally. And you’ll never guess what happened.

I look exactly the same as I did before.

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I can’t believe this happened to me

July 9, 2013 by 11 Comments

Every night I sit at the exact same place on the couch. I balance my computer precariously on the arm of the couch and I spend the evening skipping between Twitter, Facebook and listening to my husband admonishing me that the computer is in a very precarious position and is going to drop.

Last night was no different except when the phone rang underneath my bum I got such a big fright (and admittedly I could not find the phone) that I jumped right up and dropped the computer. And I killed it.

Well I didn’t kill it completely. Its heart is still beating erratically but it’s on life support because its face (otherwise known as screen) is smashed.

After my initial tears I cried some more. I am addicted to my computer like fish are addicted to water or humans to air. It’s not a matter of wanting to use it, I actually need to use it.

My son tried to placate me with offerings of his computer until he realised that if I was using it he wouldn’t be able to.   My husband tried to placate me with some silly box called the TV that you can’t even interact with. He even tried offerings of real life but there was nothing that could lift me out of my heartbreak.  I was shattered. Much like my screen. And so I took myself off to bed.

I lay there empty handed and alone until I caught my iPad beckoning from the bedside table. I quickly installed Pages so that I could get on with the business of writing and while I was waiting for it to load I noticed that the previously sparse screen looked very busy. Little  Pencil, who was watching that box thing next to me, explained that all of his purchases must have downloaded onto the iPad because the accounts are synched.

And that’s when it happened. Unsuspecting and unaware but with a vague memory of reading a million requests to play Candy Crush on Facebook I clicked on it and decided to give it a shot while I waited for my application to load.

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I am addicted.

I get what the people on Facebook are nagging me about.

I am a woman possessed.

How do I get new lives? How do I get past level 23? How do I stop playing this game?

Are you a candy crush player? Do you understand what I am going through? Will you forgive me if I take ages to respond to you because I’m just playing ONE more game…

 

CandyCrushLevels

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The place where nobody knows your name

June 20, 2013 by 2 Comments

Very keen readers (Hi Mr Pencil) will remember that I went to Byron about two months ago. It was on that trip that I uncovered the full extent of my sloth when we attempted to walk up to the lighthouse and I nearly died.  Seeing 70 year-old people literally prance ahead of me was bad, still being the colour of a beetroot and puffing a day after the event was a hideous reality check.

When I came back and my mum had surgerygym I went into the pre-op consult with her and listened to the anaesthetist tell her that the effect on the heart of  having an anaesthetic could be compared to a jog around the block.  I almost needed the services of a doctor myself when it dawned on me that I might actually die trying to jog around the block.

And so something had to change.

I signed up to Michelle Bridge’s 12 week body transformation challenge (which is a post of huge praise for another day) and bought new running gear. I used to be a runner so I was keen to get back on to the road.

The road running was going really well until it started to get rainy. And cold.  My husband very kindly suggested that I go to the gym and run on the treadmill.  “It will be kinder on your knees” he said. (And there I was thinking that I had been hiding the fact that my knees were so old sore that I couldn’t walk properly.)

So I stumbled off to the gym where he holds a contract. Except it’s not so much a contract as a key card that you swipe and it allows you into the gym 24/7 as long as you keep paying them money. Okay, I guess it is a contract.

It’s a wonderful thing this gym.  It has all the things about gyms that I love – ie

  • Treadmills
  • Loud music
  • Water

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And it has none of the things that I normally hate about gyms – ie

  • The smell of fear, sweat and exhaustion
  • Very fit people
  • Personal trainers who laugh at the way that you execute a squat
  • Anyone wearing lycra
  • People in general

Seriously there are so few people that I always go with a back up plan in mind lest I arrive and there is a “For Lease” sign hanging in the window.

It’s quite liberating training without eyes on you. Sometimes I worry that I might fall off the treadmill and be left to die but other times I just love the fact that no one is watching me. Trust me – I am NOT pretty when I exercise. Imagine a beetroot with sweat.

But there are one or two people there who I wouldn’t mind occasionally looking up. They work there. I know this because they wear shirts bearing the name of the gym and they sit behind the counter with multiple scarves on because it’s cold and they are not planning on doing any exercise.

I have set myself a little extra challenge – not only do I want to be able to run 5km without dying or pausing to catch my breath, I want to actually make eye contact with one of these staff members.

They see me 6 days a week and every time I walk past the counter to rehydrate I look at them with a red, sweaty smile and they look straight through me. Sometimes I say “hi” and they ignore me. Sometimes I try a “thanks” trying to show them how grateful I am for their services (which is basically paying the rent) and they look right through me.

I know not many people think to engage with sweaty beetroots but surely if you work at a gym you must be comfortable with seeing people look like this. Surely you should at least check occasionally to see if your customers are still breathing.

But nothing. Not even a raise of the head.

I guess I am not going to this particular gym for the great service because, in all honesty, personal trainer types intimidate me. But what kind of business runs itself without any eye contact at all?

I can’t wait to take my fitness back to Byron where the 70-year-old prancers on the lighthouse walk will look me in the eye and, in all likelihood, offer me some water and a lie down.

Do you go to a gym? Are you intimidated by the fit people or are you one of them?

 

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For everyone who says they wouldn’t hesitate in employing someone with a mental illness…

June 17, 2013 by 8 Comments

Matt Kenyon 1411It would be wrong to say that last week was particularly hard for my husband – because in reality it was no different to most weeks.  No different to most weeks dealing with a family member who is really sick and has no chance of being cured yet being no closer to death. Just sick. Stuck with paranoid schizophrenia.

I could see him at times buckling under the pressure. Feeling the weight of his brother on his shoulders, in his veins – coursing through everything he does.  Feeling equal parts angered and repulsed by the illness at the same time as feeling huge love, compassion and sympathy.

This week his brother has called him or texted him at least 3 times a day. Like he always does.  Some days it’s many more. That doesn’t sound too bad – hell there are thousands of people who would love so much contact with their family. But, the messages his brother leaves are often confused, always pleading and mostly heartbreaking.

Uncle Pencil (which is what I will call him for now) has no friends. Not even acquaintances.  His days are empty and alone.  He has very little reason to get out of bed in the morning. Bar phoning his brother (and sometimes his mother and father), Uncle Pencil has no real contact with the outside world.  He comes over for dinner to our place or my sister once a week (my sister’s family treat him like one of their own) – that takes care of 4 hours, the other 164 hours of the week he’s alone. With the voices in his head.

These voices don’t make for very good company. They aren’t nurturing, they convince him things are wrong when they aren’t. They’re louder than we are – they’ve made him believe that he can’t communicate outside of his immediate family when all he wants to do is “fit in”.

He’s as sad as he is sick.

Last week I read an article about employing people with mental illness. All it took was the Twitter link to pique my interest. All Uncle Pencil wants is a job. He just wants to fit in – he wants to have people to talk to, to go to, he wants to feel a sense of worth. He wants a job.  The article says:

“Mitchell, 38, suffers from bipolar disorder. He is also author of Bipolar: a path to acceptance, about his diagnosis of bipolar disorder, and how he learned to manage his illness. As a father of four, Mitchell wanted to show it’s possible to balance running a business with raising a family, all while managing his condition.

He says he would hire someone with a mental illness “as long as it is managed responsibly”. Mitchell believes: “It’s important for everyone to know that you can get there in the end and triumph over your mental illness.

When he has previously hired someone with a mental illness, he was proactive in supporting them. “On becoming aware of their illness I mentored them so that they could empower themselves to take the necessary action and ownership of their recovery plan,” he says.

I can almost guarantee you Mitchell would not hire my brother-in-law. Or he might. For a day.  Uncle Pencil’s illness does not look pretty. It’s not something you “become aware of” over time.  It’s there, it’s so much a part of him that it’s a part of his physicality.  Last week he shaved his own head – just some parts of it, random spots on the top of his head. Even without the haircut he looks scary – but that’s mostly just because you can see his own fear coming through in his eyes.
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And his behaviour is well, it’s mad. He’s not dangerous and in fact he’s not scary (even though he looks it)  he’s just not in touch with reality and following his train of thought is hard.

He manages his illness as responsibly as he can.  He takes his medication, he tries to continue going to occupational therapy and support groups but often he gets there and runs away because he is so frightened.

Hiring someone with a mental illness like schizophrenia is not like hiring someone with depression or anxiety. Oh Uncle Pencil has those in spades – but he’s “mad”.  Properly, distressingly, socially inappropriate and deluded

The article goes on to say

“Susan Bower, 41, owns Dressed for Success, a Brisbane-based property styling business. Like Mitchell, she would hire someone with a mental illness. “As a business owner that suffers from depression myself, I know that with treatment, people with mental illnesses can function just as well as anybody else.

“Mental illness is now emerging as a more common illness, so the likelihood of employing someone with a mental illness is much higher whether they disclose it or not.”

Uncle Pencil has no choice about disclosing his illness. It’s written on his face with the pain and fear he carries around Every. Single. Day.  However forward thinking and benevolent and depressed and anxious Australian employers are, they are running a mile from people like Uncle Pencil.

I’m not having a go at employers, I’m certainly not having a go at Valerie Khoo who wrote the article because I applaud anyone who starts the conversation. I do want to applaud organisations like Each, Nova Employment , even the ridiculously under resourced Job Access but I know that Uncle Pencil is too sick to work and worse than that he’s too sick to stay at home alone all day.

For everyone who says they would not hesitate in employing someone with a mental illness, nothing  would make me happier than introducing you to Uncle Pencil.  Give me a call

 

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Do not click on this link unless you have tissues at hand

June 12, 2013 by 14 Comments

This is the saddest video you will see today. I’ve watched it more than once and I won’t even tell you how many times it’s made me cry.

The background: a woman by the name of Linda Whitaker captured this heartbreakingly beautiful moment between her parents (who had been married 66 years) while her father was in the hospital.

It may seem odd that I have chosen to put it up on my birthday but stick with me.  After you’ve wiped away your tears of course.

I know it may not be terribly hip or contemporary to admit that You Are My Sunshine is amongst on of my favourite songs, but at the risk of losing all credibility I’m going to lay it on the line and run with it.

When my husband and I met a billion years ago we where fresh faced teens, well at least I was – he had stubble. But we were young and naïve and in love and we had our first kiss in Cape Town, South Afica in 1985 when the song Romeo and Juliet by Dire Straits was already a little hipster. The song formed the backdrop of our blooming love on that holiday and we named it ours.
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Hold Me Now by the Thompson Twins was on the first album I bought for him – and it really was an album, made of vinyl and everything.

When we got married we had our first dance to the dulcet tones of Phil Collins singing “Groovy Kind of Love”, a song that I had chosen myself (not very weddingy to choose songs without your groom but still) while Mr Pencil holidayed overseas with his friends a couple years before the wedding and I thought I might die of loneliness without him. I think I played the song on repeat a billion times and I don’t remember if we had yet even spoken about marriage when I declared it our wedding song.

But through the Dire Straits, the Thomson Twins, the many years of Tracy Chapman, my maudlin fascination with Cat Stevens, the Phil Collins, Depeche Mode, UB40, Midnight Oil, Talking Heads and Bloodhound Gang (him not me) right through to my current fascination with Macklemore (mine not his), Passenger and Bastille there is one song that still makes me think of my husband every single time I think of it or sing it to myself – because let’s be honest you don’t hear “You are my sunshine” on the radio all that very often.

This is the song that sums up exactly how I feel about him – he IS my sunshine, he makes me feel happy when skies are gray and I don’t know what I would ever do without him.

And my wish – and it’s my birthday so I get to make wishes that will come true – is that when we have been married for 66 years we will still be singing this song together.

sunshine

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